Mutually stealing the mutually stolen: a quest to make sense of Trump, protests and the inauguration

Law! Indeed! Trump! The first full service president! Place to stay. Food. Chinese manufactured clothing and jewelry. Central Park brand corkscrews (trust me, a Trump brand). Wine from the Trump vineyard in Virginia (where they employ off-shore workers). And, had he not run his airline into bankruptcy, ‘Fly Trump!’ Also coming soon to a monopoly near you – petrol from Trumpexxon (an American nationalised corporation). Trump, Trump, Trump, the boys are marching! No conflict here, Mr commander-in-chief! There was a time, children, when there was a difference between a US Marine and a bellboy at a Trump Hotel. It is like Bertolt Brecht’s ‘Alabama Song’ made manifest: ‘Show me the way to the next whisky bar Oh don’t ask why oh don’t ask why!’ A German expressionist take on America!

Received this excellent comment from one Tiberius Smith on my short-form piece, The coming of Trump. He sums up in a characteristically biting tone just how flawed Trump’s new policy, and how skewered it is to providing for his and his own, has shown itself to be. Already!

We’re a couple days into the Presidency and what have we seen?

“Alternative facts” and the internet bickering over how many attended the inauguration. What does it matter? Hundreds of thousands of women and others gathered the very next day to peacefully protest against a man that has proven time and time again that he has little respect for females. The protests didn’t only stand against him, individually, they stood against hatred and oppression on a much wider scale. I’ve got nothing but positive things to say about the Women’s March of 2017.

Trump has slammed the National Park Service and removed mentions of LGBT rights and climate change from the White House website. He’s also stressed that federal land is “owned by all Americans” and therefore suitable for drilling and mining. Yes. That’s right. Federal land as in the national parks. I hope on the behalf of the planet, as a living, breathing entity, for it’s peace and well-being and natural diversity, long after we’ve gone, disappeared as a species, that Donald Trump only has four years to commit the damage to the environment that he has promised.

Bernie Sanders spoke up at the Women’s March and got me all fired up, again. He reminded me that there’s still work to do, not only in the U.S, but across Europe too. With Le Pen looming, and nationalists in Germany and Holland gaining in the polls, it’s time to remember that this is only a momentary blip, a stumble in history. I’ve got great hope in the next generation to right some of the wrongs my generation, and the generation before me, have committed.